February 2018
As noted previously [Shurely ‘tediously’? Ed] on this blog, Tory ministers have not been slow to crow about their apparent success in fortifying HMRC’s enforcement of the national minimum wage (NMW) in recent years. In April 2016, the then business minister, Nick Boles MP, boasted to the House of Commons that
“we are enforcing the national minimum wage more robustly than any previous Government and will be enforcing it more robustly every year. In 2015-16, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs identified more than £10 million of arrears for more than 58,000 workers across the economy—three times the arrears identified in 2014-15 and for twice as many workers. I am delighted to be able to share with hon. Members that we will increase the HMRC enforcement budget to £20 million in 2016-17, which is up from £13 million in 2015-16 and from only £8 million in the last year of the…